Taunton girls tennis finishes best-ever season with win over Dartmouth

Dan Morrison

Saturday

May 29, 2010 at 12:01 AMMay 29, 2010 at 2:24 PM

In Dave Purpara’s first four years as head coach of the Taunton girls tennis team, his Tigers teams had never beaten Dartmouth.

In Dave Purpara’s first four years as head coach of the Taunton girls tennis team, his Tigers teams had never beaten Dartmouth.

My, how the times are changing.

The Tigers picked up their second win in the past week over the Indians with a 4-1 win Friday in their regular-season finale at Taunton High School.

Taunton capped off its best season ever, finishing the season with an 18-2 overall record and a 6-1 record in the Old Colony League.

The Tigers headed into the season with high expectations coming off the program’s first-ever state tournament berth last spring, but a season like this?

“I think all of us expected to have a great season because we all put in the time and effort in the off-season, but I don’t think any of us anticipated having this great of a season,” No. 1 singles player Ana Gwozdz said.

In their 3-2 win over the Indians on Tuesday in Dartmouth, Taunton got wins at first and second singles and first doubles to pull out the victory.

On Friday, the Tigers won every match except first singles, where Gwozdz fell in a hard-fought match to Dartmouth’s Bryna Brooks, 6-7 (6-7), 4-6.

Elsewhere, the Tigers were solid, just as they have been all season long.

Chrissy Maze came back to win at second singles in a third set tie-breaker, 4-6, 7-5, 10-8 over Ali Joseph, and Sara Brown cruised to a 6-1, 6-1 victory at third singles over Becca Bier.

Bridget Ginley and Maggie McAndrews had no trouble with Meaghan Sullivan and Jillian Tucker at first doubles, winning 6-3, 6-0. Alicia Webb and Carly Giannini avenged their loss at second doubles earlier in the week with a 6-2, 6-3 win over Megan Frantz and Onkita Ganguly.

Purpara looked at Friday’s win as a perfect example of how deep and talented his team is this year.

“We have girls who are willing to step up when we need them,” he said. “Today, we got two big doubles wins which took the pressure off our singles players.”

Three seniors — Ginley, Gwozdz and Webb — played their final regular-season matches in a Taunton uniform on Friday. They admitted feeling bittersweet about their high school careers winding down, but for now they’re focused on keeping this dream season going.

“Right now, we’re just focused on doing better than last season and advancing past the first round,” Ginley said. “That’s been our number one goal this season.”

“I’m sad that the season’s ending but at the same time, we’re going to states,” Gwozdz added. “We want to get a first-round win, which would be the first ever for Taunton girls tennis, and we’re excited to be the pioneers of that.”

When the seedings for the Massachusetts Interscholastic Athletic Association Division I state tournament come out on Tuesday, the Tigers will likely find themselves hosting a first-round match.

It’s a far cry from where the Tigers had been as a program before Purpara took over.

When Purpara signed on as the head coach in 2006, he inherited a program that had never qualified for the state tournament in its history. In five short years at the helm, he’s turned the Tigers into one of the top teams in the state by getting the most out of his girls, both during the season and the off-season.

The three seniors spoke of how active Purpara is with his team, even when the season isn’t in session, and they believe that’s been the key ingredient in turning the program around.

With the girls committing to tennis year round and working hard in the off-season to prepare for high school competition, Purpara said his part has been easy.

“Everybody put in 100 percent effort in the off-season,” Webb said. “It definitely is the main reason we’re having the season we’re having.”

The results Purpara’s witnessed this spring have blown him away, both from a tennis and an attitude perspective.

“I wouldn’t say I’m surprised because I always knew they were capable of playing like this,” Purpara said, “but to see it all season long has been fun to watch. They put in all that hard work leading up to the season and now they’re getting to see the results.”

He’s hoping this type of season — and the realization of how much work and effort must go in well before the matches start — will rub off on the younger players who hope to move into the Tigers rotation next spring.

It’d be hard for it not to.

“Now everybody sees how well everybody plays when they put in the work and effort in the off-season,” Gwozdz said. “And all the tennis players who want to play competitively and want to have a varsity position and compete, I know they’ll try even harder in the off-season to work as hard as they can.”

Contact Dan Morrison at dmorrison@tauntongazette.com

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